Thousands of small businesses could be entitled to free IT training following the expansion of a government-sponsored skills initiative announced in the Budget earlier this month.
Chancellor Gordon Brown pledged a further Ј190m to the Learning and Skills Council's Employer Training Pilots (ETPs), which are designed to deliver free GCSE-equivalent training to poorly-qualified workers, typically in businesses with fewer than 50 employees.
This includes (but is not restricted to) formal IT training such as the European Computer Driving Licence.
ETPs are currently operating in 12 regions of the country following a two-phase implementation over the past 18 months.
The extra funding will broaden the programme to cover almost half of England by making ETPs available to a further six regions: the North East, Lancashire, West Yorkshire, the Black Country, Cambridgeshire and Devon and Cornwall.
